Irritating Asus Notebook keyboard issue

I have an 8 month old Asus notebook (K53E, refurbished, Win 7, 64 bit, w 4 g ram) with an irritating keyboard issue, and I'd just like to be able to determine if it's a hardware or software issue in an attempt to track it down and solve it. The issue is that the keyboard skips a typed character now and then. Sometimes, it seems to have gone away, and everything is fine for awhile – then it reappears. At times, it occurs every 10th character or so – sometimes it's in the form of a key freeze, but usually it's just a skipped space instead of the character typed.

Here's what I've already tried:
I've flashed the bios
I've updated the keyboard drivers
I've replaced the keyboard itself
I've attached an external keyboard (problem disappears!)

I don't know what else I can try at this point – but what I'm hoping is that someone here has an idea of two of what I can do to further isolate the issue so that it can be better identified. I'm also hoping that perhaps it's a relatively simple fix that I've missed, given my rather limited tech knowledge.

If I haven't given enough specific info above, please let me know what I can provide and I'd be more than happy to do so. Thanks up front for any responses.
john

 

If you have an external USB (desktop style) keyboard, hook it up to the USB port and type a paragraph or two in notepad or WordPad or Word.

If the external keyboard works, it points back to the notebook keyboard as the likely problem. In this case, it's likely you'll have to replace the notebook keyboard.

You can find replacement keyboards on either eBay or Amazon for between $20 and $30. Just be sure to check they fit your exact model #.

Hope this helps.

 

Already done all of that amigo - as noted, works fine with external keyboard, and the problem persists even with a replacement keyboard installed. Any other suggestions on how we might narrow the possibilities?
jm

 

Sorry I missed the part about your already trying the external keyboard. :-o

Since you've also tried an OEM replacement keyboard, it sounds like the problem is the internal keyboard connector which is attached to the motherboard. Since the PC is only 8 months old, is it still in warranty? If so, I'd contact ASUS. If not, it may require repair or replacement of the motherboard. If this is the case, I would get estimates from a few local PC repair shops as this will be on the expensive side.

 

gman, Thanks for your response - this is what I feared - since it was a refurb unit, it's out of warranty - and I'm not sure I have a local repair shop that could handle this kind of job. I may just muddle through and learn to live with it.

Thanks for the help.
jm

 

I have much the same problem

I have an ASUS N81V laptop running Win 7 Ultimate that has keyboard issues.
A little history; my laptop travels extensively, so oftentimes, an external “full size” USB keyboard gets plugged in. The first issue I noticed was my “alt” key didn’t work, and then some letters didn’t work. I googled the problem and the consensus seemed to be ‘bad keyboard’. I ordered and installed a new keyboard, problem solved, (or so I thought).

Shortly thereafter, I had more issues, my ‘Fn’ keys wouldn’t type correctly without holding down the Fn’ key (the ‘Fn’ functions were reversed). I consulted many “Gruru’s” and the consensus was again ‘bad keyboard’. I pretty much learned to live with it by using a USB keyboard until I had a hard drive crash and had to install a new hard drive with a fresh Win7 load. Suddenly my ‘bad keyboard’ worked fine.

But, alas, within a few days my keyboard woes returned. I plugged in a USB keyboard and once again the ‘Fn’ functions are reversed and also the numbers 9 and 0 along with the colon and semi-colon are affected similarly.

Since I feel the key board itself has pretty much been eliminated as the problem, I think the cause has got to be with the driver(s) windows loads to run my USB keyboards, somehow it doesn’t revert to the default laptop keyboard when I unplug the USB keyboard. Note: the 3 different USB keyboards that I use all work just fine when I plug them in.

Any and all thoughts or ideas age greatly appreciated.

Thanks all,
Lobo